Slant’s Top 25 Films of 2012

From Calum Marsh’s introduction to Slant Magazine’s Top 25 Films of 2012: “Two thousand and twelve was, if nothing else, a banner year for uncommonly productive provocation. Audiences were galled by Rick Alverson’s divisive deconstruction of hipsterdom, The Comedy, beguiled by the taciturn charms of Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master, and, um, probed by the penetrating cultural criticism of David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis. Masters of cinema both old and new even found time, between saucy bouts of male stripping and fellating chicken parts, to butt heads with every conceivable status quo, grappling admirably with hot-button issues as wide-ranging as colonialism (Tabu), U.S.-endorsed torture (Zero Dark Thirty, maybe or maybe not endorsing it itself), and the very nature of cinema (Jafar Panahi, who didn’t make a ’film’ at all).” Click here to read the feature and see if your favorite films of the year made our list. And see below for a list of the films that just missed making it onto our list, followed by our contributors’ individual ballots.

Chuck Bowen
1. Holy Motors
2. The Kid with a Bike
3. Tabu
4. The Master
5. How to Survive a Plague
6. The Deep Blue Sea
7. This Is Not a Film
8. Lincoln
9. The Queen of Versailles
10. Your Sister’s Sister

Honorable Mention: Oslo, August 31st, Killer Joe, 4:44 Last Day on Earth, Jiro Dreams of Sushi, Elena, Crazy Horse, Skyfall, American Animal, Jeff, Who Lives at Home, Middle of Nowhere

Jesse Cataldo
1. This Is Not a Film
2. Holy Motors
3. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
4. The Master
5. Almayer’s Folly
6. The Color Wheel
7. Magic Mike
8. The Day He Arrives
9. Cosmopolis
10. Neighboring Sounds

Honorable Mention: Zero Dark Thirty, Tabu, Farewell, My Queen, How to Survive a Plague, Alps, In Another Country, The Innkeepers, Extraterrestrial, Chronicle, Where Are You Taking Me

Honorable Mention: Holy Motors, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, Jiro Dreams of Sushi, Crazy Horse, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Barbara, Diana Vreeland: The Eye Needs to Move, Jean Gentil, The Secret Life of Arriety, The Woman in the Septic Tank

Honorable Mention: The Comedy, Lincoln, Killer Joe, Keep the Lights On, Beasts of the Southern Wild, The Color Wheel, The Five-Year Engagement, The Queen of Versailles, Sister, This Must Be the Place

Glenn Heath Jr.
1. This Is Not a Film
2. Zero Dark Thirty
3. The Turin Horse
4. Miss Bala
5. The Day He Arrives
6. The Deep Blue Sea
7. Whore’s Glory
8. Barbara
9. Girl Walk // All Day
10. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

Honorable Mention: The Kid with a Bike, Oslo, August 31, Two Years at Sea, Tabu, Haywire, Django Unchained, Post Mortem, Burn, Not Fade Away, Perfect Sense

Kalvin Henely
1. The Color Wheel
2. Tabu
3. This Is Not a Film
4. The Day He Arrives
5. The Kid with a Bike
6. Damsels in Distress
7. Killer Joe
8. How to Survive a Plague
9. The Deep Blue Sea
10. In Another Country

Joseph Jon Lanthier
1. The Color Wheel
2. Zero Dark Thirty
3. Consuming Spirits
4. The Comedy
5. This Must Be the Place
6. Elena
7. Domain
8. The Deep Blue Sea
9. The Day He Arrives
10. 4:44 Last Day on Earth

Calum Marsh
1. The Color Wheel
2. Neighboring Sounds
3. The Day He Arrives
4. Tabu
5. The Deep Blue Sea
6. Holy Motors
7. The Turin Horse
8. Oslo, August 31
9. This Is Not a Film
10. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

Michael Nordine
1. Beasts of the Southern Wild
2. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
3. Zero Dark Thirty
4. Oslo, August 31
5. The Deep Blue Sea
6. Moonrise Kingdom
7. This Is Not a Film
8. The Turin Horse
9. 4:44 Last Day on Earth
10. Kill List

R. Kurt Osenlund
1. Cosmopolis
2. Beasts of the Southern Wild
3. The Kid with a Bike
4. Take This Waltz
5. Lincoln
6. This Is Not a Film
7. How to Survive a Plague
8. Holy Motors
9. The Master
10. Anna Karenina

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Five citations of Goodbye, First Love surprised me. I stopped watching after a half hour or so, not finding anything to grab onto. I'll finish it and report back.
Nobody mentioned We Need to Talk about Kevin?Posted by mwic on 2013-02-01 14:54:18